Our Impact

A high-dose antioxidant regimen helps slow one type of genetic hearing loss in mice. Researchers hope to learn whether it could someday be used to treat the most common cause of childhood deafness.

Some animals are able to regrow tissues lost to injury or disease. Zebrafish do this in their retinas, which are remarkably similar to our own. So do humans also have these tools to repair a diseased retina? If so, what are they?

Researchers from the U-M Medical School and the FDA have published a new study that shows the key role of excess gut calcium in awakening C. diff spores; a discovery that could ultimately lead to better patient treatment.

A team of U-M researchers has developed a novel mouse lung transplant model of chronic rejection to test if two new therapeutic treatments would decrease the scarring process in lung transplant patients.

Why do so many babies fall victim to infections that invade the gut but others don't? Research in germ-free mice yields important clues.

Using U-M's germ-free mouse facility and advanced genetic techniques, an international team of researchers studied the impact of diets with different fiber content -- and those with no fiber. The findings show the importance of eating natural fiber to protect the digestive tract's vital mucus barrier.

For more than a decade, Celina Kleer, M.D., Harold A. Oberman Collegiate Professor of Pathology and director of the Breast Pathology Program at the U-M Cancer Center, has been studying how a poorly understood protein called CCN6 affects breast cancer. To learn more about its role in breast cancer development, Kleer's lab designed a special mouse model that deleted CCN6 from the mammary gland in mice, which allowed the team to study effects specific to the loss of the protein. The results, recently published in Oncogene, have revealed a key genetic driver for a rare form of metaplastic breast cancer.

It's a pretty obvious connection - those who exercise more often are less susceptible to disease. But how exactly does a man’s aerobic capacity affect his chances of suffering a spontaneous heart attack? And how does a woman’s running ability impact her brain function? U-M researchers have developed a unique rat model that provides scientists worldwide with a significant resource to study how exercise endurance capacity correlates with disease risks.

Who gets hooked on drugs and who stays clean? New research, conducted in rats, identifies genetic markers that influence addiction.

Children with brain tumors have had limited treatment options in the past compared with adults. A novel research model, developed in mice at U-M, will make it easier and faster to test new treatments.